Ireland

Ireland

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Email etiquette revised

I wrote a post a while back going on and on about how there should be some kind of email etiquette. All my emails always started with "Dear so and so" and ended with, "Thanks, Mark" or something similar.
My text messages also always started and ended the same way. I thought it was the civilized thing to do.
They argue it's about saving time.
Most people I talked to about this thought I was nuts.

I'm here to tell you, I have digressed.
Over time I have come to agree, sort of, with my brother's ( I shall call him Bob ) argument that an email is just the continuation of a conversation.
No more Mr Nice Guy here. I can be just as rude as the next guy.
I'm all in for crumbling the corner stone of common courtesy.

This has not been a easy transition for me to make. It's not second nature to me yet, but I'm working on it. As an example,
I received an email the other day. I replied by starting with, "Dear Dave". I wrote my response and was about to send it, and I noticed his email didn't begin with "Dear Mark", so I did what any regular emailer would do, I deleted the "Dear Dave." There, take that!

My mouse was poised over the send button, but I couldn't pull the trigger.
So I went back to the beginning and typed in "Dave." Just "Dave."
I thought that was better.
Again, poised over the send button, second thoughts, back I went and deleted "Dave" and then sent it.
I felt like my email was naked. No beginning, no ending.

But what a time saver.

7 comments:

Jerral Miles said...

Dear Mark,
I really like the way you think... and write...
Jerral

Alison said...

Haha! Love it!

nacherluver said...

Funny!
I don't struggle with that over e-mails. I shoot them out there as if I was chatting on the phone.
I completely understand where you're coming from as I am still very formal in my snail mail. I can be writing to a life long friend and I still start with the date in the upper right and "Dear So-and-so" as the header.
Old habits die hard.

Karen thisoldhouse2.com said...

Dear Mark -

You're an old soul, aren't you. And that's not a bad thing, not at all.

Sincererly,
Karen

Sueann said...

I treat email like chatting too!! Didn't realize I was being rude. Oops!!
Hugs
SueAnn

dcpeg said...

Thanks for pointing up something that bugs lots of us. Like you, I often ge hung-up on the beginnings and ends of emails. Usually, I follow whatever the writer did.

It's sad that we're losing so many of the basic "good manners" we learned in our youth. They made life more pleasant and genteel. I hope we never loose the "magic words": please and thank you.

Anonymous said...

Lack of letter(email) etiquette is enough to make an old English teacher cry.
Molly